“For a capital city, Wellington is really small. Maybe it’s the smallest in the world, besides, like, some place in the Faroe Islands.”

My news analysis lecturer was talking about media markets at the time, but my mind wandered to just how small Wellington really feels. Not as tiny as Torshavn (Thanks CIA World Factbook!), but there is one thing that makes it feel that way. Fewer than 200,000 people call Wellington city home, but because it’s the cultural capital of the country, there are always hundreds of things going on, making it impossible to be bored. No, what makes it feel like the smallest of small towns is my inability to go anywhere without running into someone I know. This often works out in interestingly coincidental ways. After trying to make plans with a friend, we agreed to meet up another day but several hours later ran into one another getting takeaway from the same restaurant. The day before my mid-semester break trip began, I stopped by the public library downtown to pick out a few books for the journey, and my travel buddies snuck up behind me in the stacks. Even when I’m not bumping into friends, I am tripping over the impromptu reunions of strangers on the sidewalks downtown.

Occasionally I spot a person with a particularly egregious hairstyle and then notice the same person on the other side of town several hours later, but sometimes sightings like this lead to confusion. I’m still unsure whether the tough-looking guy in a skirt I saw two days in a row was one person or two of many people in touch with the city’s artsier side. Possibly twins with similar dress sense? Several friends have conclusively determined this is the case with the identical violin-playing boys spotted busking all around town after a few too many double-takes.

Even outside the city center running into people I know is about as easy as spotting sheep, but comparing travel stories with friends shows I’m not the only one. One girl from my program was encountered all around the South Island: walking the Abel Tasman Track, taking the ferry back to Wellington, traveling the east coast. It seems implausible that among four million people and 40 million sheep we’d continue seeing the few people we know, but it keeps happening.

It brings to mind the generally ridiculous question that’s inevitably asked when finding out about hometowns: Do you know (some person who happens to live in the same city/state/country, regardless of how many other people live there too)?

Well, do you know someone in New Zealand? Give me a few days and I just might know them too.